The difference between poll-reading and decision-making
When she is scripted with focus-grouped positions, Hillary Clinton can make a lot of sense. When she is on her own, using her instincts instead of polling results, she is often a train wreck. An example is the immigration issue. You will recall this story from last month (via Newsbusters):
“It is hard to believe that a Republican leadership that is constantly talking about values and about faith would put forth such a mean-spirited piece of legislation,” she said of the measure, which was passed by the House of Representatives in December and mirrored a companion Senate bill introduced last week by Senator Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican and the majority leader. ”It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scripture because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself”
On the afternoon of the 23rd, CNN political analyst Bill Schneider aired the Hillary quote with this anodyne introduction: “Enforcement? In December, House Republicans passed a bill that adds guards and fencing along the border and makes it a crime to employ or assist illegal aliens. A similar bill may come before the Senate. A leading Democrat’s response?”
This month there is a New Hillary on immigration, and she sounds a lot tougher. She seems to say all the right things, says Michael Goodwin of the Daily News:
In an interview Friday, she cited specific goals that could, and hopefully will, become the heart of bipartisan legislation that might actually fix this national crisis.
A fence or a wall? She’s for it. A two-step process, where our borders are secured before the 11 million illegal immigrants already here begin to get legalized? She’s for that, too. The sudden crackdown by Washington on employers who hire illegal immigrants? She welcomes it. The work and school boycott advocacy groups are planning for May 1? She’s against it. And she said she favors a “carrot-and-stick” approach with Mexico to provide that government and its “oligarchs” the incentives to give Mexicans more and better jobs in their own country.
“A country that cannot control its borders is failing at one of its fundamental obligations,” she said of America’s “broken system.” She also said that “we do need an earned path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants here.
Not that Mrs. Clinton actually cares a great deal about border security, mind you. She’s for “smart fencing” but against a “dumb wall,” which to us sounds like she’s for anything that will sell to the security-minded rubes, and allow her amnesty for Jesus to be enacted.
Where to conclude? We didn’t write this to bash Hillary Clinton. She is apparently tireless and aggressive, but she doesn’t have the natural ear of a good politician, as her first instincts often show. But that’s not our main point. We were going to conclude with a stirring defense of bold decision-making over against poll-watching, but as we reflect on decisions from Harriet Miers to the guest-worker program, we can think of examples where a decision maker ought to be taking the polls into account a bit more than he does.
UPDATE
Mrs. Clinton tried many career paths (AP):
“I wanted desperately to be an Olympic athlete,” Clinton said Monday at a Purchase College symposium on Title IX, the 1972 law outlawing sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. “I tried everything. I ran every race, and if I was really lucky I finished second to last…I couldn’t jump, I couldn’t run, I couldn’t swim.”
After determining she’d never be an athlete, she set her sights on becoming an astronaut. “So I wrote to NASA and said, ‘How do I sign up to be an astronaut?”‘ she said. “And they wrote back very politely and said, ‘We don’t take girls.”‘
Next went the dream of a career in medicine. “I volunteered at the hospital but kept getting lightheaded and woozy when I saw anyone in any kind of distress,” she said.
She also abandoned hopes of becoming a scientist or mathematician because she didn’t have the best grades in those subjects.
Judging from the above, picking politics over make-believe storytelling was a good choice.